Defrosting the relationship between President Buhari and Asiwaju Tinubu

Defrosting the relationship between President Buhari and Asiwaju Tinubu

By Sola Adeyeye

A dear friend, who is not a politician, has just forwarded to me a Whatsapp message pertaining to scurrilous statements attributed to Asiwaju Bola Tinubu during a meeting held with his “loyalists” last Saturday.

I was not supposed to be at the said meeting. I intruded on the meeting by an act of gratuitous serendipity. Fortunately, nobody present at the meeting raised an objection against my presence. I took my seat before Asiwaju began to speak; I heard everything that Asiwaju said from beginning to the end.

If Lucifer exists, perhaps his very worst demons inhabit the minds of politicians! Nothing besides that can explain the wicked misrepresentations of what Asiwaju said.

Obviously, no reading of the political tea leaves is needed to fathom that all is not well with my party, the All Progressives Congress (APC). But whatever the  disaffection within the APC might be, it is now very clear to me that perhaps unbeknownst to Asiwaju Tinubu and President Buhari, some myrmidons of hell are implacably committed to driving permanent wedges between Asiwaju and the President.

At no time during the said meeting did Asiwaju say that his residence witnessed any siege during the tenure of President Buhari. Rather, he narrated the siege and other wicked engines of intimidation that were unleashed against him by the Jonathan Presidency. At no time during the said meeting did Asiwaju attribute cowardice to Buhari. Haba! In fact, his speech had minimal reference to President Buhari! He neither said nor alluded that Buhari ate or lived in his residence. If he did, I would never offer a defense for what would have amounted to arrant silliness and needless indecency in the contestation for power. And lastly, at no time did Asiwaju say that the APC must lose the coming election in State of Ondo.

I now wonder whether anyone at that meeting would have stooped so low to so wickedly misrepresent what were said. I also wonder whether some who were not at the meeting could have used a fecund but evil imagination to fabricate such outright calumny.

I plead with President Buhari and Asiwaju Tinubu not to allow their relationship to get more frosty. What are stake are far beyond the personal stakes of Mohammadu Buhari and Bola Tinubu. Our republic dithered for far too long on the precipice of disaster. We must not botch the rescue mission that the Nigerian citizenry entrusted to our party. May the God of peace bruise Satan under our feet shortly.